Martin Luther King papers auction halted over row with singer

The documents, which included a three-page handwritten draft of King's first anti-Vietnam war speech in 1967 and notes found in his suit pocket after his 1968 assassination, had been put up for sale by Belafonte, a former close friend of King.

The 81-year-old said earlier that the papers had been given to him by King and his late wife, Coretta Scott King, and that he intended to donate the proceeds of the sale – estimated at up to 1.3 million dollars – to charities that help "the disfranchised".

But after the King estate learned of the sale, it objected and claimed the documents were "the property of the estate of Martin Luther King Jr".

"The King estate believes the documents being offered in Thursday's auction are a part of the wrongly acquired collection," said a statement issued on behalf of the estate. "The King estate is currently in conversations with Sotheby's to establish the truth."